Never Let Go
by Catherine Jane 13
Summary: It's the summer of 1933, and 17 year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater is travelling to Philadelphia to see her fiancé, Cal's, family, over-protective mother in tow. But, as luck would have it, their car breaks down in the small immigrant town of Bishop's Bridge, Iowa, and are forced to board up in an old hotel until their car can be fixed. There, Rose meets Jack, a boy who truly sees her


_Bishop's Bridge once was a place filled with color, but one day the spark that had lit the town afire with rebellion and courage went up in smoke and disintegrated into to a scattered hodgepodge of painful memories of what things once were. But as a new face comes to town to uncover some sort of beautiful truth, he inadvertently mends a few unattended wounds and helps a broken town become whole again, this time with the strength that loss provided, and the reckless abandon people once possessed long ago._

* * *

"Brock, when are you going to give it up already?"

"Give it up?" Brock Lovett repeated incredulously to his older cousin, Lewis Bodine.

"Yeah. Give it up." Lewis rubbed his bearded chin, and let out a short burst of pathetic laughter. "You've been at this book for years, and you can't come up with a single Goddamn sentence! Just go back home and tell Pops you couldn't do it."

"No," Brock argued firmly. "I can't. You know I can't. If I go back there, he'll say he told me so and that I should have finished my masters and come up with some sort of back-up plan to fall back on."

"Yeah. He did tell you. And now I'm telling you. You owe Billy for six months rent already. How far in debt are you going to get before you wake up? Go back to college - any college! Finish up your degree, and become a teacher or an accountant or something so you can support yourself! Just don't swim so far out that you can't get back, kid." He lowered his voice; people in the café were starting to stare.

"So what?" huffed Brock. "Did Dad send you all the way out here to convince me that he was right?"

"Yes and no. Lizzie heard through some people that you were having some trouble and she asked me to take the trip down." Brock's eyes widened at the mention of his sister." I don't know if Uncle Sam had anything to do with it, but -"

"So my little sister sent you down here to babysit?" he interrupted. "God, this day keeps getting better and better. Why don't you heat up my bottle while you're at it! I'm thirty-two, Lewis! Thirty-two! I can make my own decisions! I'm not sixteen anymore!"

"Hey, hey! Calm down! You didn't let me finish."

"I know, I know: 'Stop doing what you passionate about, Brock. Go back to being miserable.'"

"Oh shove it. You're acting like a little kid," Lewis waved his hand in dismissal. "And that wasn't what I was going to say. It doesn't have anything to do with the book. When Lizzie called she also wanted me to tell you that she's going to be back home on your birthday to take care of some old lady for a friend, and she really wants you to come so you guys can catch up."

"So basically I can either go home and have Dad chew me out, go home on my thirty-third birthday and have Dad chew me out while he dotes on my baby sister, or not go at all." A beat. "I like the last option."

Lewis shook his head, disappointed. "Well, Brock," he rose from the booth and put the tip under his coffee mug, "like you said, its your life. I just hope you don't waste it."

"Thanks for the guilt trip, Lew," Brock quipped sarcastically as he shook his cousin's hand. "Let's do it again sometime."

Lewis gave a tight-lipped smile and walked out of the café, turning around to give a brief nod of goodbye as the glass door swung shut.

Brock stayed at the table for few minutes longer, trying to remember when his life went this wrong. _You know when_, he thought. _When mom died, and you decided to throw your life away on some dream you had when you were in high school. You could have been a successful doctor, like Lizzie, and graduated from Dartmouth, like Mom, or gone off to war like Dad. But instead you ran away to Los Angeles to write a novel that you can't even put down a single word for._

"Dad is right," he whispered bitterly to himself. But a burst of optimism surged within him as he said, "But he doesn't have to be," and rushed frantically out of the café. He still had a few more days until his birthday, surely he could come up with something by then.

But three hours later, back in his holy mess of an apartment, he couldn't come up with a solid idea, let alone a beginning phrase. And it was killing him. Tons of scribbled on papers were crumpled and strewn about his bedroom, and the hope he felt earlier that afternoon had dwindled considerably. He ran his fingers through his messy auburn hair and took a deep breath, carefully poising himself with his ballpoint pen - and then the phone rang, jarring him from his calm. _Perfect timing._ Brock sprung off his bed and answered it with a gruff hello.

"Well someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." The person on the other end laughed freely.

"Oh," was all Brock could manage to say when he recognized the voice. "Hey Lizzie."

"You don't seem to excited to hear from your baby sister; everything alright?" she asked, concerned.

"Cut the crap, sis. You sent Lewis to give me a check-up," he accused.

There was a long pause as Lizzie searched for the right words to say.

"Well..." Brock urged impatiently.

"Well what did you expect me to do, Brock?" Lizzie blurted. "You're my big brother, okay? You practically raised me, what with Dad being gone to do whatever the hell he does and mom being so busy and then... dead."

Lizzie was only fifteen when their mother died; Brock was twenty. Mom's death was the reason he dropped out of college in the first place. She did all of this preparing and learning for the life she was about to create for herself, and then, _poof._ Everything disappeared in an instant. Brock didn't want to build his life toward something that he was never going to make. He didn't want to die without fully living. But was barely scraping by in a shitty apartment in a shitty city where all he did was fail, was that really living either?

"Brock, are you still there?" He'd been silent all this time.

"Yeah," he replied off-key. Clearing his throat, "Yeah, yeah."

"Listen, I'm sorry about the whole Lewis thing. I just love you so much, you know that."

"Yeah, its fine. Whatever. I'm over it," he muttered, blowing it off as if it weren't a big deal.

"So you'll come?" Lizzie brightened up. Brock could practically hear her smile from over the phone.

"What?"

"Back to Iowa! You know, Des Moines. Dad's house. Home," she was practically bubbling over.

"Oh, I don't know, Liz-" Brock was shaking his head.

"Come on!" his sister interjected, cutting him off mid sentence. "You only turn thirty-three once, Brock. Why not spend it with family?"

_Because Lewis is right. Dad did tell me so._

"Please, Brock?" his sister pleaded as if they were in elementary school again. "Just this once?"

"Fine, fine, I'll come," he said, not realizing that the words had formed in his mouth and been done justice aloud.

_Fuck, _he thought, but immediately felt guilty when he heard his sister's high-pitched voice thanking him excitedly over the telephone.

_Anything for you, Lizzie._

* * *

Baggage claim wasn't very crowded; no one ever comes to Iowa. Brock swung his barf green duffel bag over his shoulder and stumbled through the glass doors leading out into the nearly empty parking lot. Lizzie's car wasn't difficult to spy, what with the huge sign saying, 'Brock, get into the car!' and the blond-headed girl with her upper-body hanging out the sun roof that happened to be holding that sign, face aglow.

"You brought Dad's army duffel," was the first thing she said to him, frowning in hesitation. He'd forgotten that was Dad's. Suddenly he became self-conscious about carrying it; something that marked the attribute of bravery. After all, Brock Lovett was the family disgrace.

"You don't seem too excited to see your big brother," he teased, mimicking their phone conversation earlier in the week and trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling swirling in his stomach.

"Cut me some slack!" she groaned, not picking up on Brock's discomfort. "My new patient in Cedar Rapids isn't being very cooperative. She doesn't need therapy... just a babysitter to make sure she remembers to take her pills. I swear when Kaitlin gets back..."

Brock zoned out hearing his sister talk about her job, being guilty about not really having one for himself.

"But anyway," he heard when he tuned back in to his sister's words, "enough about me. Dad'll want us home before dark." Lizzie smiled her famous, award-winning smile, and ushered her brother into the front seat.

As Brock tightened the lap belt around his waist, looking out at the violet sunset, the only word he could think about was_ home_. Des Moines hadn't been home in a long time.


End file.
